RFC 1346 (rfc1346) - Page 2 of 6

Resource Allocation, Control, and Accounting for the Use of Network Resources

RFC 1346      Resource Allocation, Control, and Accounting     June 1992


   Often the situation can appear worse than having to survive in a
   jungle, in the sense that the strong (even if "good") seem to have
   little advantage over the weak.  It may seem that it is the
   determined person rather than the important work that gets service.

   Most people will have experienced poor service on an overloaded
   network at some time. To help the end-users, it seems on the face of
   it that one must help the IT Service Manager he relates to.  Examples
   relating to the relationship between the network manager and his
   customers, IT Service Managers at institutions connecting to his
   network, include the following:

   (a) If the IT Service Manager finds his link to the Network Manager's
   network overloaded, he may be offered a link upgrade, probably with a
   cost estimate.  He might prefer control mechanisms whereby he can say
   that department X deserves more resources than department Y, or that
   interactive terminal use takes preference over file transfers, or
   that user U is more important than user V.

   (b) Where an IT Service Manager is sharing a link, he will commonly
   get more than his institution's share of the link, and often get very
   good value-for-money compared to using a dedicated link, but he has
   no guarantee that his end-users' usage won't get swamped by the use
   of other (perhaps much larger) partners on the shared link.  This
   could be seen as wishing to have a guaranteed minimum share according
   to some parameter(s).

   (c) On a shared link as under (b), the Network Manager may wish to
   ensure that usage of the link (which might be a high-performance
   trunk line on a network or an international link for example) by any
   one partner is "reasonable" in relation perhaps to his contribution
   to the costs.  In contrast to (b), the Network Manager is wishing to
   impose a maximum value on some parameter(s).  He may be happy if the
   width of the IT Service Manager's access link is not greater than his
   share of the shared link (assuming the measure agreed on is "width"),
   but this will commonly not be the case.  To be able to reach
   agreement, the Network Manager and the IT Service Manager may need
   options on the choice of parameters, and perhaps a choice on the
   means of control, as well as being able to negotiate about values.

   In circumstances where the Network Manager can exercise such controls
   over his customers, the IT Service Managers may say with some feeling
   and perhaps with justification, that if they are going to be
   controlled can the Network Manager please provide tools whereby they
   can arrange for the onward sharing of the resource they have, and
   thence onwards down the hierarchy to the end-users.





Jones